Caring for Carers of People with Dementia Project

The Caring for Carers Program is a free program for rural and isolated Australian carers of people with dementia. In rural Australia, knowledge about availability and utilisation of support by informal carers is not optimal, despite the many resources generally available for carers of people with dementia. Caring can be a special challenge for those who live in rural areas, where resources may be less accessible. We know that developing social networks that can be continued into the post-care period can improve outcomes for this expanding group of predominantly older people. The mission of the Caring for Carers Program is to connect carers with other carers for peer support and social network augmentation.

A multidisciplinary national and international team, coordinated from CQUniversity, has been funded through the Australian Government Department of Health Dementia and Aged Care Services Fund to evaluate feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of video conferencing to connect carers with other carers. While this technology has been tested with people with chronic disease, connecting carers is a new and promising innovation.

The Caring for Carers Program has been developed using a co-design approach, capturing the shared experiences and unmet needs of informal carers of people with dementia, to underpin the content of the program.

We will continue to call for participants until April 2019.

Here is a video that expresses how people feel about their participation in the program:

Research Approval

This project has received approval from CQUniversity’s Human Research Ethics Committee (20926). This project is being carried out as per the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) produced by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. This statement has been developed to protect the interests of those who agree to participate in human research studies.

Resources

Are you the main carer for someone with dementia? Is it hard to attend things because of your caring duties?Does isolation or distance make it difficult to meet people? Would you like to join a free program, from home, and meet others in a similar circumstance?